Some conventional data storage systems are designed to mount to electronic equipment racks. One conventional rack mount data storage system includes a rack mount chassis, storage circuitry and a front panel. The rack mount chassis mounts to vertical rails of an electronic equipment rack and resides within an interior space defined by that rack. The storage circuitry (e.g., an array of disk drives, processing circuitry configured to perform data storage operations, etc.) sits within the chassis. The front panel then secures to the rack or to the front of the chassis to enable frontal access to the data storage system.
Typically, the front panels of rack mount data storage systems have standard heights which are measured in Rack Units. A Rack Unit (U) is 1.75 inches and typically covers the distance of several mounting holes along the vertical rails at the front of the rack. It is common for a conventional 19-inch data storage system chassis to have a height in whole U-increments within the range of 3 U's to 6 U's.
For a manufacturer of rack mount data storage systems having distinguished looking patterns on front panels in the range of 3 U's to 6 U's in height, it can be difficult to scale down the patterns for a front panel which is less than 3 U's to 6 U's in height in an effort to preserve the distinguished look for a cohesive appearance to a line of products (e.g., a similar looking panel for a smaller-sized system or subsystem). This is because the front panel needs to provide adequate space for particular useful features such as air ducts, LED visibility, posts for rigidly supporting an electromagnetic interference (EMI) shield, buttons for detaching the front panel, and a keyhole for locking the front panel to the rack. As the height of the front panel shrinks (e.g., such as when a manufacture attempts to make a front panel which is similar looking to a larger existing front panel), these features tend to crowd toward each other and compete for space which ultimately may prevent the manufacturer from providing a front panel which preserves the distinguished look.